New Beginnings in Your Heart and Head

There is a great tendency to be discouraged when you have pain everyday. It’s like a slippery slide in our Oregon rain. If you just sit there on that slick slope, you’re going to slide down and probably land in the gooey mud. Sliding through this life is easy. You don’t really have to do anything in particular. Just embrace your depression, know life today and again tomorrow, will be terrible and there you have it; the slow descent into a life of hellish pain and suffering.It’s an interesting fact about suffering that it is not all in the physical realm. Suffering is highly contagious and can infect our hearts, out minds and our attitudes…big time. It spews and oozes over into our social lives, our family lives and our financial existence.

All of us know what it is to wallow, weep and immerse ourselves in anger and self-pity. After all, we’re only human and we human beings do not like to hurt. When we are first accosted by this beast, whether it arrives riding the horse of disease or comes at us like a bat out of hell in the form of an accident; we still don’t like it. What kind of person would like having pain everyday?

Eventually, you find yourself at a point in life when you know, deep within your private thoughts, that you will always have pain. It’s not going anywhere. You’re stuck. You may become angry, sullen and throw that glass in your hand at the refrigerator. I’ve done it and it’s a bit satisfying, however, you do have to eventually clean up after yourself. Life is funny that way. We don’t make all the messes we find ourselves in but we do end up being the one to perform the clean up.

Okay, now the light has been flipped on, the dawn has exploded and the reality of the rest of your life is in your face. What do you do? The ball is in your court. After we’ve done all we can, after finding the best doctors possible, taking our meds faithfully and trying some measure of exercise — what do we do now?

I would challenge you to pull out of that state of depression by making each day a new beginning. New beginnings can burst forth in a troubled, pain-filled body. Accepting the fact that you can change your life will give you something to ponder, embrace and actually look forward to. Just for now, forget your body; toss it aside, figuratively, of course. New beginnings start in your heart and in your head. Same old body, brand new you. It is possible.

You are not your body. Your body is just that part of you that you have to drag around with you every day. You are that true part of you that lives in your head. Call it your spirit, your soul or that eternal you. You are your thoughts, your aspirations and your dreams. You are that person who steps past your pain and comes out on the other side. Let’s talk about how we make this happen. Please allow me to quote from one of my favorite philosopher and writer who I have loved for many years, Glenn Clark. He writes, “You attract unto yourself the condition that accords with what you are. You only get by giving. Do you want to get a whole personality — then go and give a whole personality. Give to whom? It doesn’t matter, for God is all about you. Give it to the least of those about you — give it to the greatest of those about you. This is what sets one so marvelously free — free from surroundings, from environment, from everything. It doesn’t matter to whom or to what one gives oneself — it only matters HOW one gives oneself. The light —the love— the joy — the abundance with which you give yourself attracts the same that is outside of you to you. It cannot be otherwise.”

Mr. Clark continues, “What are you? Are you a giving person? If you are, the world will be giving to you. Are you a getting person? If you are, the world will be getting all it can away from you. Do you give powerfully? Then Power will come to you.

Do you give lovingly? Then Love will come to you. Do you give beautifully? Then Beauty will come to you. Do you give abundantly? Then Abundance will come to you.”

You may ask, what do I have to give? Give whatever you have to give. If you have a talent, share it. If you have love, give it. If you have faith, use it and share it. If you have financial means, share that, also.

Your body may not change but your mind, your heart and your spirit can override the pain. Look for inspiration and it will come to you. You have to look. It helps in your search if you are not overly sedated, inebriated or basically out of it. It’s just pain. Don’t let it become your life. You have value. Never forget that. When life ends, it ends. Don’t take an early out by giving up on life. Each day can represent a new beginning.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more